Jein danke! exhibition posters

One hundred years ago, the formerly independent city of Spandau became a borough of Berlin, as part of the Greater Berlin Act. An exhibition at Zeughaus Zitadelle commemorates this administrative change and shows how it affected the Spandauer identity. The ambivalent, partly reluctant attitude of the local citizens towards the incorporation is reflected in the title, Jein danke! (“yes and no, thanks”).

Studio Lindhorst-Emme designed a series of four posters for the exhibition. The dominant typography pairs two typefaces from Pierre Pané-Farré’s Affichen-Schriften, a series with revivals of historical poster types released in 2018 by Forgotten Shapes. Schmale Egyptienne No.12 FSL and Breite-Fette Antiqua FSL both have roots in the mid-19th century and hence predate the events from 1920 by some seventy years. They nevertheless work as plausible period choices, certainly for a general audience. Similar condensed slab serifs and Fat Faces were still a common sighting on Prussian Litfaßsäulen in the early 20th century.

In the title settings, Studio Lindhorst-Emme playfully altered the proportions and details of the letterforms: On two posters, Schmale Egyptienne is made even schmaler (i.e. narrower), and Breite-Fette Antiqua becomes a little less breit (wide) for “JEIN”. This isn’t accomplished by stretching and distorting the letterforms, but rather by selectively extending them, taking advantage of their straight segments. The letter k in “danke” doesn’t lend itself to such an intervention, and consequently is left unmodified. Other edits are less obvious, but serve a comprehensible purpose: The roof of the fat J is extended to the left, to fill the void in the corner of the poster. In the condensed J, the hook grows higher for a similar reason, and the aperture of E is enlarged for a more distinct letter image.

These posters are easily my favorite ones currently on display in Berlin’s public space. The exhibition runs till 24 January 2021.